Hey all,

Well I've been chipping away at this project over the past 12 months when I have spare time and I'm near to the end but I need some advice on how to finish up but before I get to that I'll give you a quick look at where I'm at with my USCM Armour.

It started back in 2009 when I purchased a set of MAA from Steve....when I finally received it it was less than desirable and was angrily packed away in a box and didn't see the light of day until almost 6 years later. Sick of having a lot of other Marine gear building up and collecting dust I decided it was time to get this Armour project finished.

I was so focused getting the webbing done that I didn't take any pictures of that part of the build -







Then it was time to start with the 1st and 2nd coats -





This is where my huge appreciation goes out to Harry Harris for kindly providing me with some pictures of his screen used Armour for paint reference. At the start I planed on painting screen accurate Armour but in the end Harry's pictures gave me the confidence to go for it and make that first brush stroke, from there I sort of went off on my own pattern for a lot of it. Either way, my thanks goes out to you again Harry...I'd still be sitting at my table wondering how to start the paint job if I didn't have such great pics to look at

Here are some pics of the patterns and the order in which I applied them -









The next scary step was to see if the way I planned to weather/damage the Armour would work. Basically take a blade to it after painting and scratch the paint off and hope for the best...once this was done the Armour was lightly rubbed over with Med coarse steel wool and then black grate polish was applied all over....before it dried I then lightly buffed the Armour with fine Steel wool and then all repeated till I reached the desired look -


Zip Black Grate Polish used to darken and weather the Armour








Aluminum back brackets supplied by Matt Noble

Oooo! Will be following this build!

Looking great! Well done.

_________________
Sgt. Frank Peters 'reload' Smartgun Operator
A03/TQ3.0.12136E1 "It will be no picknick!"
AL Colonial Admin. - Sergeant at Arms (SgtA) -- 2020-2022
GERCM - Executive Officer (XO)
UKCM Foreign Legion: The Deviant Dragoons

One thing I really want to touch on is the M1 Steel Helmet. When I started to drill the holes to mount the camera body, drop down sight etc I attempted to do this with my Sutton high speed steal drill bits. After 30 minutes with a brand new bit I still didn't have one hole completed so I called my friend to see if he knew what I was doing wrong? Laughing all the way to my house he was looking forward to saving the day....2 hours later, 3 broken drill bits and a bloodied hand from a slipping drill bit we had only managed to drill one hole. These helmets are seriously strong when it comes to this, that was until I went to my local trade store and they recommended trying one of these bits -


(picture of Sutton Cobalt drill bit used from internet...can't remember off the top of my head what size I used but I think the screws I used were 2mm)


about 40 min later I had 10 beautiful clean holes drilled and taped -



At each point I wanted to drill I used a nail punch and gave the spot a wack to make a fine dimple so the drill bit wouldn't stray...after that the drill bit went thru the helmet like butter.... Also each hole I drilled I used a bit of lubricating oil on the tip of the drill bit. I HIGHLY recommend getting one of these bits if your going to be working on a real M1 Helmet.

I have heard a couple times that people were very unhappy with his armor with the chief complaint being 'paper thin' spots in the fiberglass. Were their other aspects to it that led to the angry stashing away for years?

Man it sure looks clean though. Supposedly molded off an original? Or is that all hearsay and hype?

You certainly got the most out of it. Really looks great. Really beautiful set.

Wow! That armor looks great! I love the paint job! Was the green base coat a spray on or brush on?

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I have not failed... I have succeeded in finding what DOESN'T work

I have a set of MAA armor. I don't think I had any paper thing spots, but the one thing that bothers me the most is the missing chest crease.

And the fact that no matter how I heated, bent and cooled the chest and back pieces, they keep wanting to revert to their original shapes which DO NOT conform to the body.

Now, I had my suspicions that this was a second generation copy of an original....which brings Steve's reputation under even MORE scrutiny, but he's no longer around so the point it moot.

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"Awww, someone tell me that's a boot!

It's a boot!"

III drops

Amazing paint job! Amazing armour!

_________________
If you can read this, - you're too close!
ALIENS: Last Stand (Fan Film): https://felixberner.de/film/ALIENS-Last-Stand/

I had the same problem drilling mounts in my M1. Ended up using a wee cutting blade on the angle grinder and then a step drill bit to enlarge - complete mission when you don't have quite the rights tools

P.s. That weathering is looking awesome! Well worthy of the effort you're putting into it.

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Cpl Aron "septic" Williams
A10/TQ0.0.82146E1

The weathering looks great.

Hey guys,

Thanks for the kind words :p This project has certainly been one of the more trying for a number of reasons and I'll certainly be happy once this is finished.

bigbisont - yeah I wasn't going to go into much detail as to why but basically Steve just up and left leaving a LOT of people out of pocket hundreds of $$ for BDU's and Armour....don't even get me started on my BDU's (pants that could have fit two of me in them). From what I could see at the time I was pretty much the last person to get it before he vanished....and even then it took a lot of bombarding emails to get it. When I received it, the Armour was cracked and chipped, paper thin in some parts and looked like a mish mash of parts he had left over....with some parts missing....a fellow board member was VERY kind to send me a set of Armour shoulder flaps and the helmet lobster plates, I can't remember off the top of my head who it was though ( I think I still have the packaging they were sent in so I'll have to look for that so proper thanks can be given).

So basically the Armour was boxed away and pretty much written off. I got sick of seeing it sitting on the shelf and it was a constant aggravating reminder every time I saw it so it was time to either try and fix it or throw it away. With the amount of repair work needed to the cracked and uneven fiberglass I retooled parts of the legs to make them larger, did a light repair to the outer side of the Armour, molded the parts up and made a fresh set (since I did this for myself and NOT to sell I felt comfortable doing this). The benefit apart from a crash course on how to fiberglass was I mixed Alloy powder into the gel coat so when it was lightly sanded back it has a silver effect coming thru.

theBIGone2087 - The base coat was White Knight Touch up (Wilderness) -



Thanks Burner for the kind words as well as the advice on where to get some amazing reference pics ;P

septic - Yeah I used a cutting wheel on the inside of the helmet for the first hole...basically cut an X shape and then tried to drill in the middle of the X..and the the Cobalt bit came along and changed my life

I want to have my Armour displayed since there's no point doing all this if it's just going to go back in a box so I made a simple base for it out of MDF which I then coated with black pigmented laminating resin. As for the floor tiles, I haven't found anything that really resembles what was used in the film so had to use what I could find at the hardware store for now until I find something better suited. The base itself and floor tiles still need to be painted and a clear coat applied but I'm leaving that until I'm finished working on the rest of the display -

Wow, this is great! Love what you've made there!

Beautiful display. Well done.

_________________
Sgt. Frank Peters 'reload' Smartgun Operator
A03/TQ3.0.12136E1 "It will be no picknick!"
AL Colonial Admin. - Sergeant at Arms (SgtA) -- 2020-2022
GERCM - Executive Officer (XO)
UKCM Foreign Legion: The Deviant Dragoons

Fucking love that base, nice work. Armour is pretty too

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AKA: Simon

Really liking that mannequin base! The armor looks good as well!

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"A writer needs a pen, a painter a brush, and a filmmaker an army." - Orson Wells.

http://www.rookscastle.com
http://www.alchemyarms.com

Great job all around!

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My entry-level prop and costume tutorials: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12751

Thanks guys for the feedback....I'm hoping once I put a black coat on the decking plates and weather it a bit that it will appeal to me more.

In terms of displaying my Armour, although a human mannequin would probably be more suited for the look of a Marine I didn't have access to any that really looked realistic without having to pay an enormous amount of money...and even the more expensive ones were in poses that would have meant major work hacking to get it in a better pose, as well as finding one that the Armour would fit suitably. So I decided to go a more futuristic direction, like an early model support Marine droid before synthetics were refined and introduced, once I had chosen what I wanted to do it was time to try and bring it to life as best I could -











At this point I wanted to have sort of like Armour plating on him but still looking human so I bought some fiberglass mannequin arms that I liked and molded and cast them in case I screwed this up and could attempt it again....which I did, so thank crap I did The forearms have earth magnets cast into them so they can snap on and off but I also used a couple of screws to hold them more securely. I foam filled in between the endo frame and Armour plates to get a nice snug fit -









I wanted him to have the ability to hold what ever I wanted in particular posses so I snapped off the fingers and inserted to Alloy knuckle joints so I could change the direction of the fingers to hold weapons better as well as adding strength to it -

Bloody hell.

I like where this is going. Can't wait to see more.

With adding graffiti to my Armour I didn't want a lot of it and I wanted something that reflected my user name but you don't see that many Barking dragon's out there so I trawled thru all the pictures of dragons on line and then chose a cartoon dragon since Military personnel seem to go with cartoon graphics when personalizing things...ie the front of aircraft.... Oh, and a big shout out to Moosh89 for the name stencils, great quality, super easy to use and lightning fast delivery











I still may add something to one of the shoulders but until I know what I want for sure, I'll just leave it as is for the moment.

This is some truly Amazing work.

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Cpl N.Storey A12/TQ2.0.02132E1
MARINE RAIDER

Thanks for that schotti, it sure has taken me a long time to get to this point but I'm finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel

With the arms pretty much worked out I decided to use one of my iRobot busts that came with the Blu-Ray special edition and the head for this guy. After stripping his head apart I dremeled out some parts of his face shell, added new eyes with LEDs and a power chamber in the back of the head. I stripped some old computer parts for boards and cables, mashed it all together and then weathered the crap out of it all. The neck he had was a static 1 piece which I hated since I wanted to be able to pose his head at different angles so I casted some round balls, Salvaged, cleaned up the inner middle part of his neck adding ball sockets to it and brought it all together with a high strung spring to hold the weight of his head -

Man....who R YOU???? The creator of skynet? Damn....I you are amazing!!!!!!!!

_________________
If you can read this, - you're too close!
ALIENS: Last Stand (Fan Film): https://felixberner.de/film/ALIENS-Last-Stand/

This is pretty crazy!

Check out Aliens Defiance from Dark Horse (with art by Australia's own Tristan Jones) for a similar concept. The story has "Working Joe" style synthetics being used by the Colonial Marines.

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My entry-level prop and costume tutorials: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12751

Omg that's amazing I love it!!